


Are We Losing Our Balance?

by taormina



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Angst and Fluff, Angst with a Happy Ending, Depression, M/M, Non-Graphic Violence, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-16
Updated: 2016-08-16
Packaged: 2018-08-09 04:18:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,743
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7786474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taormina/pseuds/taormina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On one of his late night strolls, fresh-faced self-professed vigilante Matt Murdock ends up preventing a man’s (Frank’s) suicide. What follows is a lengthy conversation about life and death, good and bad — and a curious attempt at having a good time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Are We Losing Our Balance?

The wind carried strange sounds. If he concentrated hard enough, he’d hear the rustling leaves from crunching, crackling autumn trees twenty feet away. Sometimes, a snippet of a conversation would reach his ears and make him quicken his step. Some things just weren’t meant for him.

Tonight, there were only two things Matt Murdock wanted to be aware of: one, his own heartbeat, and two, his own breathing as he walked the busy, tortured streets of Hell’s Kitchen. Tonight was a practice run; a way of fine-tuning his powers and figuring out what to do with them. Once he figured that out, he’d be able to save people’s lives by day and save even more by night.

He turned a corner. He knew instantly that he’d entered a busy street lined with partygoers and clubs and cafés. Onlookers, mystified at the sudden appearance of an obviously blind man in such a colourful, ambient district, mumbled as he passed. They gossiped. _What’s a guy like him doing here_ , one of them said. _What’s up with that cane_ , another whispered. He doesn’t belong.

Matt tried blocking them out, just like he’d practiced. He failed; a comment from an attractive-sounding lady reached his ears and hurt his pride. She must not have liked the suit he was wearing. (It was grey, as per usual.)

He turned left and the sounds became even louder. The whispers disappeared but were replaced with party sounds. He heard loud music and the disorienting reverberation of speakers and subwoofers. A whiff of a sharp, nasty odour reminiscent of the streets of Amsterdam hit his nose and he almost gagged. He still had to work on the whole blocking out smells thing.

He concentrated hard. And harder. One by one, the sounds disappeared. All that remained now was his own excited breathing as he realised that the hard work had paid off.

He smiled to himself. He was getting better at this.

Matt allowed the sounds to return to him. As if he’d taken off a pair of large, heavy headphones, the sounds came back to him like big, crashing waves of whispers, music and muffled conversation. He heard everything in perfect detail. The world was his to navigate.

But something wavered. There was a glitch in the aural streets he was a part of — an error on a favourite record; a scratch of a needle; a bum note; an off-key piano you can’t block out.

There it was again, in the distance. Crying. But not the loud kind, not the dramatic crying in a movie scene — it was _silent_ crying; a single tear down a cheek.

It shouldn’t have bothered Matt – he heard plenty of terrible, life-altering things these days – but something about the sound made him stop and think. This was a pleasant neighbourhood. This was a place where people got together and had fun. Here, they got drunk, got laid and had a good time.

Matt knew, because he’d done it himself. Every Thursday. (God, had his student days been fun. That time he and Foggy woke up on a street corner in a different state? Amazing. And they still managed to make it home in time for their exams as well.)

But people didn’t cry here. It didn’t belong.

Matt listened. The sound was almost definitely coming from up above. The weather was cold today. Chilly; he could still feel the cold air through his suit. No-one would have been sleeping with the window open. The crying must’ve been coming from a rooftop.

He could just go up there and check it out. If this turned out to be a sad adult, and he hoped it would, he could just have a quick chat and get them off of there. He’d have done the neighbourhood yet another service by making a sombre individual feel better about themselves.

But something made him hesitate. He’d only been doing this whole ‘saving the neighbourhood’ thing for a couple of weeks, but he’d already been on enough rooftops to know better. This might turn out pretty sour.

(One night, two or three weeks ago, Matt went up on a rooftop because he felt like it and accidentally stumbled upon a criminal doing, well, criminal things. You know, dealing illegal drugs. On a rooftop. Matt was lucky he’d put his disguise on or he’d have been in an awful lot of trouble.)

(Said criminal was still in hospital, thank you very much. There would be no dealing of dangerous drugs in _his_ neighbourhood.)

The crying continued. He had to make up his mind.

He hoped no-one was watching and threw away his glasses. He half tore open his grey suit like a bad tribute to Clark Kent and revealed an all-black outfit. Finally, he fished a similarly coloured beanie out of one of his pockets and pulled it over his eyes. His cane had already been deposited into a trash container. He rarely came back for them.

It wasn’t hard to find a way up to the rooftop. He found a disused fire escape and climbed it like one would a regular staircase. With each step, the crying he thought he’d heard became fainter and fainter while a single, solitary heartbeat became louder. It was racing fast. It pumped blood through this stranger’s veins with urgency. It sounded _odd_. Unbecoming.

Perhaps this someone was scared, or — or lonely — or perhaps they were indeed a criminal and Matt would soon have to fight them off —

The final step of the fire escape gave a loud, complaining _creak_ , and the crying stranger’s heartbeat momentarily halted as if frightened. Then it continued beating again, as quick and as urgent as it had been.

Judging by the cold air on his skin (his black outfit wasn’t very winter proof; it was something he still had to work on but it was hard to justify splashing his money on different varieties of black, shadow-hugging outfits if he kept tearing them on his trips), Matt had almost made it to the roof of the building. While he made a quick, inexperienced attempt to drown out the muffled city sounds around him, the wind carried the stranger’s voice to his ears, hoarse and male: ‘Who the fuck are you?’

Matt hadn’t expected that reaction. Judging by the crying he heard, he’d have gone for ‘sad female civilian who’d just been stood up. On a roof’.

He put another careful step forward and found his feet land firmly on a concrete roof. ‘I — I’m just . . . I’m here to help?’ he offered cluelessly.

The young attorney’s mind made a quick sketch of the situation. The stranger’s voice didn’t sound far off; he was standing four or five feet away. He was male, obviously. A bit older than him, but not by much. His heartbeat was the strangest thing of all, with its unfamiliar speed. Matt thought he caught a whiff of — what was it? — Adrenaline. Fear.

Why fear?

Why — _here_?

‘Let me guess,’ the stranger said, ‘you’re here to talk me out of it, huh?’ Talk him out of what? What was he doing? ‘Well, good luck with that.’

‘Wait —’ This came from Matt. He sounded confused. He didn’t know what was going on.

But then —

Then the pieces slotted into place. The crying. The roof. The soft ruffling of fabric around this man’s arms and chest, which indicated —

‘WAIT!’

His companion put a single, lethal step forward into the dark beyond.

Matt registered the sound of a heartbeat, a sharp intake of breath, and he made a big, dangerous leap forward and caught the stranger’s hand.

_Oof!_ Matt landed with his knees on the rooftop, but he didn’t care, it didn’t matter —

He was only a feet away from the roof’s edge, the stranger flailing and struggling at his hold —

One wrong move and they’d both fall to their deaths —

‘Let go, you idiot!’ the man cried, followed by a series of expletives. He tried to fight at Matt’s grip, to force him to let go, but Matt wouldn’t — he simply refused —

The stranger was heavy, but it wasn’t impossible. He could do this.

Matt focussed on his own heartbeat. He took a deep intake of breath. He blocked out the stranger’s desperate pleas to grant him death and serenity. All he had to focus on was pulling him back up.

The stranger struggled against his grip. He was desperate. He wanted to fall and leave this world behind.

Matt wouldn’t let him.

‘Not today, stranger.’

By sheer strength of will, Matt managed to pull the stranger back onto the roof and knocked him right out.

—

‘You’ve got a terrible right hook, you know that? Punched like a damn kid.’

‘Still knocked you out though.’

The stranger fell silent. ‘You got lucky, pal.’

The boxer’s son smiled knowingly as he listened to the stranger wipe the blood off his chin with his sleeve. ‘ _Sure_.’

It was hard to determine what Matt thought of this stranger. After he’d knocked the man out and half-carried him off the rooftop and dragged down the stairs of the fire escape, he sat him down in front of a trash container and tried to make sense of his heartbeat. It made no sense at all. Over the years Matt had become pretty good at understanding if people were lying or speaking the truth, but he still struggled with spotting the small, subtle nuances in people’s heartbeats. He’d thus far concluded that this stranger was obviously depressed enough to take his own life, and yet something about it didn’t add up. There was an extra layer of emotion, a feeling Matt couldn’t put his finger on.

Maybe the stranger was just pissed that his plan hadn’t succeeded.

Or, perhaps — was it shame? Matt couldn’t tell.

The stranger had stopped moaning about right hooks and good punches. ‘What’s your name, anyway?’

Matt had taught himself not to answer this question at night. Standing over the stranger in case he tried to run off and do something stupid, Matt defensively crossed his arms and tried to make it look as if he was staring at him. 

‘Right. So you’re the quiet type. Lemme guess, black outfit, nice little face mask — you’re trying to save this city, yeah? Maybe you made a couple of mistakes in life and you’re trying to make up for them. No? Bored rich guy, then. Well, apart from that outfit . . .’ He scoffed like he thought Matt was beneath him. ‘There’s no saving this city, believe me. I’m Frank, by the way. In case I still manage to throw myself into a bus later and you need to, I don’t know, identify me. Hope you’ve got a strong stomach.’

Matt cringed at this blunt comment. ‘Is that why you jumped, _Frank_? Because of this city?’

A laugh. It sounded rather unbecoming. ‘That’s a crap reason, man. It’s all in here, isn’t it?’ Matt heard Frank tap his head with his index finger. ‘Can’t get rid of it.’

‘Can’t get rid of what?’

The attorney decided to listen to the stranger’s own soundscape again. Gave him a once-over, as it were. His heartbeat had slowed down considerably. The levels of adrenaline in his body weren’t as high, although an ounce of fear still remained in the way his arms would shiver every now and then. The blood on his bottom lip had dried. On the surface, he seemed calm.

Matt figured Frank probably wouldn’t do anything stupid for now, so he decided to sit next to him. The ground felt cold and smelt of litter.

‘Tell me, Frank.’

‘You wouldn’t understand,’ Frank said bitterly.

‘I’m an attorney, try me.’

‘An attorney, huh? Is that why you’re running around saving people with a — what is it, a beanie on your face? I’ve seen young kids that looked more impressive than you.’

Matt flushed. ‘It’s not a beanie.’

‘Yeah, it is. I’m surprised you’re not wearing a cape, man.’ Said by anyone else, this might have sounded like jest; said by the tired, worn-down Frank, it sounded more like a deflating party balloon.

It made Matt wonder what Frank looked like. He’d say pale and haggard, but judging by the way this guy had struggled against his grip up on the rooftop, maybe he wasn’t so weak after all. Perhaps he even knew things about combat. (His going on about Matt’s ‘poor right hook’ certainly suggested he did, but he could easily just have been annoyed at being knocked out by a guy wearing a beanie over his eyes.)

Then the way he spoke, with that sarcastic, hardened gruff of his; it suggested that he’d seen things. Bad things. Could Frank have been in a warzone? Had he been in a traumatic situation? What could have been so bad that it made him do something so final?

And finally, the leather jacket that brushed against Frank’s t-shirt and the skin underneath it; it painted a picture of someone who was, well, a bit buff. Perhaps even handsome.

(Let’s be honest, though: Matt Murdock could always tell if someone was attractive. Despite his predilection for death, this stranger definitely _was_ very attractive.)

Why would someone like that want to jump?

‘We were talking about why you were trying to commit suicide, Frank,’ Matt reminded his new, strange friend.

A beat. ‘Have you ever seen something so bad that it just stays with you, stranger?’ Here, Frank left a deliberate silence as if he was expecting Matt to reply. Matt merely flushed again and awkwardly pointed at his beanie as it that explained everything. ‘Well, imagine that,’ Frank went on in that lonely gruff of his, ‘but a thousand, a million times worse. No-one can live with that, you know. No-one.’

Frank said this all with so much sadness that Matt worried that Frank would indeed throw himself under the next bus and kill himself, but no abrupt attempt at ending the conversation came. Frank remained seated on the cold concrete next to him. Matt’s saving him had, quite literally, grounded him. For now.

Matt found himself moving closer to the stranger. He felt like this was one of his court cases, the ones when every detail mattered and he had to dig deep to find them. ‘You served,’ he supposed.

Frank uttered a sound of affirmation.

‘What’s it like?’

‘Like hell.’

Matt waited for some elaboration. None came.

Frank’s silence allowed Matt’s mind to fill with ideas, theories; this stranger must have seen some really, really bad things if it had driven him to the edge like that. Something must have broken him during the time he served, something that he was never quite able to put back together again. Was it a friend’s death? Casualties in a bloody warzone?

Matt couldn’t imagine it. He’d been through plenty of hardships and losses himself – some only very recently – but he always got through them. They always made him _strong_.

He guessed not everything was meant to make you strong.

‘Isn’t there something you can live for?’ he asked the stranger.

Frank let out a bark of a laugh at this naïve question. It was the kind of question people who’d never been through dark days asked. They assume that if there’s something you can live for – a family member, a dog, some famous pop star who has cute blue eyes – it instantly makes things better. It doesn’t. Frank knew that. He’d tried. ‘You know, stranger, you ask a lot of stupid questions for someone who won’t even show his face. Who do you think you are, Batman or something?’

‘I . . .’

‘I’m just saying. Be a lot more impressive if you showed your face.’

Admittedly, the mask had been only a recent addition to Matt’s amateurish attire. He figured he wouldn’t do much good roaming the city streets in pursuit of criminals if people saw his face or realised he was blind.

But Frank wasn’t a criminal. At least, he didn’t think so. His heart didn’t beat like criminals’. He didn’t speak like them. Perhaps serving had left something bad in him, chipped at the part of him that was good and innocent and whole, but he wasn’t a bad person. The only person he posed a threat to was himself.  

‘Fine,’ Matt sighed, and he took off his beanie and ran his fingers through his hair a little embarrassedly.

Something about the way Frank’s heart was ticking changed, just momentarily. ‘That’s better,’ he said. His voice sounded changed too. Matt assumed it was because of his being blind. ‘Now, tell me, stranger; what do _you_ live for?’

This question took Matt by surprise. He had never really thought about it because he didn’t _have_ to. He was happy. He had Foggy. He had recently become an attorney, and a good one too. He was getting better at using his powers for good. The sex he occasionally enjoyed was all right and sometimes he even managed to hold on to a lover past three in the morning. What was there _not_ to live for? The city he lived in might have been spun in a web of darkness, but generally life was a lot better than it ever had been.

‘I live for a world where good prevails over bad,’ was Matt’s final answer. ‘I think living in a world like that would make me very happy.’

Frank groaned. ‘What, like world peace? World peace is something only children believe in.’

‘Is that what serving taught you?’

Matt couldn’t see Frank roll his eyes. ‘No, but I’m getting real tired of hearing you talk.’ As if that was his cue, Frank got up from the floor and dusted off his pants. He ran his thumb along his bottom lip and found that the blood from Matt’s poor right hook had dried. ‘Nice meeting you, stranger,’ he added, sighing, before starting towards the end of the alleyway like their conversation had never taken place at all. 

Matt scrambled onto his feet as quickly as he could. ‘Wait —! You can’t just leave!’

‘Watch me, stranger. Next bus, that’s mine.’

Matt felt sick to his stomach. So Frank _hadn’t_ changed his mind.

He measured up his chances. If he followed Frank, it might push him into more reckless behaviour like jumping off a fucking rooftop. If he didn’t follow him _at all_ , there would be no way of telling what this stranger would do to himself. Frank would forever be a ‘what if’; a tiny headline on the seventh page in a local newspaper. No-one would spare him another thought.

Alternatively Matt could _still_ follow Frank and tell him to appreciate life, to listen to the way the leaves rustled in autumn storms and how the wind would carry other people’s conversations; to appreciate how every single conversation signalled a separate life that was beautiful and complicated but oh so worth it — but Frank didn’t seem like the sentimental kind.

If only Matt could talk him out of it, if only he could tell him that the images in his mind’s eye would fade and one day disappear . . .

This entire train of thought took place in a second or less. Frank had not yet left their alley. Matt was standing on the spot as if turned into stone, still mulling over his choices as if he were back into court. Then an alarm sounded.

Frank stopped in his tracks. Matt started.  

They turned to each other and listened.

The alarm kept going. They heard screams; they were the screams of a woman fighting for her life.

Matt set his jaw. This is what he’d been training for. The burglaries. The muggings. The fights. This is what he had come here for tonight; to prevent at least one criminal act from taking place and rid the city of yet another crook. This is what he’d wanted all along.

But he couldn’t leave. If Matt left, he wouldn’t be able to keep Frank safe. He’d have no way of knowing what would happen to him.

_BOOM!_ More screams.

Nervous laughter. Quick, fading footsteps.

The sound of shattering glass. Its source was just around the corner.

‘Frank,’ Matt began urgently, ‘you don’t have to do this. Whatever has been haunting you, you’ll figure it out. It will pass. But I think I need your help right now.’

They heard shouts. Men’s. Several of them.

If Matt had to guess, someone had robbed one of the stores he passed on his way to the party district. He’d never stopped a robbery before.

‘I don’t want to fucking help you, kid,’ Frank spat at him while Matt’s ears worked overtime to catch every sound of the ongoing robbery. They were no more than an alley away. ‘I just want you to leave me alone. You go save this city singlehandedly if you think you’re so damn tough. I hope it kills you so you’ll know that I was right about this city.’

‘I don’t think you really mean that, Frank.’

‘Oh ju—’

Frank never got to finish his sentence. Shots rang out, and there was a great big _BANG!_

Something had triggered an explosion.

They didn’t know who was behind it.

All they knew is that they both started towards the sound, Matt with his stupid beanie pulled over his eyes again and Frank with his heart racing in his throat because this was _exactly_ what his pour damaged soul needed.

The moment they turned the corner, a wall of heat hit them.

Matt heard the crackling of flames, the falling apart of a window pane as it disintegrated into a dozen, fire-blackened fragments.

Partygoers that had previously traversed the streets had run off into different directions, leaving the alley bare and deserted but for Matt and his new companion.

The strong smell like that of a bonfire prickled his nose.

He imagined the two of them standing in the alleyway as the fire from the building licked the surrounding houses and slowly coloured the dark street orange and red.

No-one could have survived that.

But then, in the distance — a set of voices. One, male, loud, forceful, and farther away; the other, female. Scared. Heartbeat rapid. Hers was closer; she was still inside the building.

Matt turned to Frank. He looked at him with indescribable intention — if blind men were capable of doing so. ‘There’s a woman still in the building, and three, no, four men in the area. I think they’re behind this.’ He stopped to smell the faint whiff of gold and silver. Jewellery. So someone had tried blowing up a jeweller’s. ‘They’ll be carrying jewels.’

‘AREN’T YOU SUPPOSED TO BE BLIND, THOUGH?’ The sound of a smaller explosion almost drowned out Frank’s voice, and his heart fired up with urgency.

‘There’s no time to explain. I’ll find the woman. _Go!_ ’ Matt ordered Frank before leaping into the hot, fiery belly of the building.

He didn’t listen to Frank scampering off in hot pursuit.

_He’d worry about him later_ , he thought about his stranger. _He’ll be fine without me._

He didn’t realize Frank was thinking the exact same thing about him.

Indeed, Frank didn’t think he’d ever spare the masked stranger another thought at all. He’d do this thing, whatever this was, and go home. He’d still jump. He still felt the depression in his arms and legs. It still felt like an itch on his shoulders, an inexplicable shiver he couldn’t scratch off no matter how much blood he drew. It still slowed him down, even now. Some curious, blind stranger dressed in black wasn’t going to save his life and miraculously make him see sense.

For the past month, all of his days had been spent alone. Without fail, he went to bed each night with an odd ache in his stomach. He went to bed each night feeling like an extra blanket had been draped over his body; a blanket that felt heavy and _cold_ , like his own limbs. And whenever he _did_ manage to sleep, he’d awake in the early morning in a puddle of his own sweat because of the nightmares he’d had.

It wasn’t fun. It wasn’t living. It was surviving each day until one night you decided to give up.

That night was today. Tonight, he was meant to jump and embrace the darkness he’d so gotten used to.

Later, he would make another attempt and succeed. 

Then he caught sight of the robbers. They were walking in the other direction of a narrow, dirty alleyway, jewels in hand.

And the sight . . . excited him.

Frank called out to them. The robbers looked over their shoulders and made a run for it.

Frank’s legs were faster. The sound of the explosion and the heat of the flames had incarcerated his fatigue. New blood was pumping through his veins.

He forgot, for a moment, about his troubles. As he knocked one of the robbers to the floor and yanked the pearl necklaces from the man’s dirty, blackened hands, he could almost feel his worries turn into a dozen manageable pieces like the beads that hit the ground. Perhaps, indeed, all he needed was a distraction. Perhaps there was something to live for in the dark streets of Hell’s Kitchen after all.

He got distracted.

A second robber hit him squarely in the face. Another hit him in the stomach, and flashes of what he’d been through passed him by: the pain; the battlefields; the hurt; the guns; and the poor friends he’d lost in the midst of smoke and tar. Like a cloud on a perfect summer day, the flashback caught him off guard and threw him off balance. That familiar feeling of emptiness again crept up his arms. Another familiar whiff of blood hit his nostrils.

A third fist landed on his body. A fourth. A fifth. He’d be lying if he said he relish the pain.

Almost suspended in between punches and a fatal, dangerous fall to the floor, the sad stranger wondered what would happen if he just gave up, if he just laid there and took the blows —

Oh fuck, it’d be so damn easier than taking that bloody, splintering leap —

That’s when the attorney showed up.

The stranger joined the fight. He landed a fist on a robber’s cheek and prevented Frank from tumbling over.

He narrowly avoided a man’s foot. He looked athletic. Experienced.

He knocked a man out.

‘Sorry, Frank, what was that about my poor right hook?’

For a moment, all Frank could do was watch, in awe, how a man he was absolutely sure was blind managed to take on three robbers on his own. He was actually _good_ at this.

A fist flew into the attorney’s direction. He again managed to avoid it and shot a look into Frank’s direction. ‘Are you going to help me or what?’

_Groan!_ His energy somehow reignited, Frank tore a heavy jewellery case from one of the criminal’s hands and hit him with it. The man stumbled backwards and fell onto a pile of heavy cardboard boxes with a sad little _oomph_. Two.

‘You can’t even fucking _see_.’ This came from Frank. Another assailant miscalculated his punch and Frank hit him in the stomach before shoving him into a wall head-first. That made three. ‘How are you doing this?’

Only one robber was left. He scrambled to grab the remaining pieces of jewellery on the floor, then _crack_! Matt’s foot hit him in the ribs and the criminal fell onto the ground face-first. In a final shot at prosperity, the robber desperately reached out for a gold bangle next to a trash container before he gave a little whimper and collapsed. Four.

Matt could already hear the sound of police sirens in the distance. ‘I’m just really good,’ he shrugged.

‘My _ass_. I had pals in the Navy who were less good than that. What the hell is up with you?’

‘Never mind that; are we going to ignore the fact that you actually _enjoyed_ that?’

‘What? I didn’t,’ Frank grunted indifferently, but his body was telling a different story. His heartbeat was fast, but not with fear. His adrenaline levels had gone up. His breathing was steady. And if Matt had practiced just a tiny bit more, he’d also be able to tell that Frank’s entire stance had changed. His arms were no longer lifeless and devoid of energy, they were akimbo. He looked stronger, firmer.

The sirens were fast approaching. In a minute or so, the city would be rid of four more men with bad intentions.  

‘Come on, admit it,’ Matt urged Frank.

Frank didn’t feel like talking about it. ‘So you saved this woman that was inside the building?’

‘She’s alive and well.’

‘What, thanks to your superpowers?’

Frank had said this very loudly. Matt shot a worried glance at the criminals that were out cold, then gently shepherded Frank into a different alley as if he wanted to be quite alone. Just at that moment, the police sirens stopped and five seconds later six policemen and –women appeared out of nowhere and surrounded the spot the robbers were lying in. It was hard to miss; the robbers were covered in their ruined spoils of pearl necklaces and gold bangles.

Matt listened to the commotion until he went on, quite softly, ‘They’re not superpowers.’

‘No, what are they, then?’

In the distance they could hear a policeman read one of the robbers his rights. An ambulance had also arrived to help the woman Matt had saved and left with an unharmed neighbours.

‘I can hear heartbeats,’ was Matt’s simple explanation. When he was quite sure no-one could see or hear them, he took off his face mask-stroke-beanie and ran his fingers through his hair like he’d done previously. Again, there was a blip in the way Frank’s body ticked that he couldn’t put his finger on. ‘I can hear everyone’s heartbeats, all the time, and I know that yours is scared. It’s terrified. It’s excited. But it doesn’t want to _stop_ , Frank. Didn’t you notice how good it felt to take down those men? How alive it made you feel? You don’t just want to give that up.’

Frank laughed incredulously. ‘Right, so you’re blind _and_ a mind-reader.’

‘I’m not. I — I can tell how people feel by — by listening to their heartbeats . . .’ Matt trailed off when he realised how stupid it sounded. It’s something he hadn’t even told Foggy; had Foggy known about his abilities, their friendship would be forever changed. You don’t just walk up to someone and tell them an accident gave you powers without risking the chance of totally freaking someone out.

Frank was incredulous rather than freaked out. ‘How am I feeling now, then? _Huh_?’ he demanded before grabbing Matt’s hand and placing it on his chest rather forcefully. ‘ _What’s my heart saying now_?’

Matt was about to argue that his so-called abilities didn’t work like that, but the strength with which Frank was holding his hand was so great that he had no choice but to try.

The attorney noticed, indeed, excitement and adrenaline in Frank’s beats. He felt the stranger’s in- and exhales against his palms. With each breath Frank took, Matt heard a million reasons to take another.

In the scarred, wounded hands that would soon heal, Matt felt unexpected softness. _Promise_. All of it, in time, would heal.

And there, in the middle of it all, was a little flutter of hope, an anomaly; a promising tick that sounded whenever Matt took off his beanie and ran his fingers through his hair.

That’s exactly when Matt understood what Frank’s heart was saying.

‘You’re . . . _lonely_ ,’ Matt concluded with an air of surprise. He’d never tasted loneliness so clearly before. ‘The reason you felt so good during that fight – the reason why you felt inclined to jump – it’s because you _need_ someone, Frank. You . . . need someone to be with you,’ he whispered with the wonder of a scientist who had just made an astounding discovery. ‘You’re lonely,’ he reiterated ponderously.

‘You got all that from my heartbeat?’

‘Yes.’

‘ _Horseshit_.’

‘Am I wrong, though?’

A beat. Some consideration.

‘No. No, stranger, you’re not.’ Frank removed Matt’s hand from his chest. He cast down his eyes to avoid having to look the attorney in the eye; pointless, really, as Matt wouldn’t be able to look back anyway. ‘I don’t see how not being on my own is going to get rid of the damn images in my head, though. What do you want me to do, f— find a lover, burden them with my nightmares? It’s not going to stop making me feel shit. Believe me, I’ve tried.’

‘Who said anything about a lover?’

Frank did.

There followed a long silence. Again, there was that little flutter of hope in the stranger’s chest. Matt was starting to see what he needed now.

He saw it perfectly.

‘I mean,’ Matt began slowly, calculatedly (he didn’t want to suggest something that might rub Frank up the wrong way; they’d travelled too far for that now), ‘you could — you could come with me if you like.’ He let out a nervous breath. That strange flutter in Frank’s chest was almost contagious. ‘Fight crime with me. Just for tonight.’

‘What if I still feel like shit by the end of it? Catching some robbers isn’t miraculously going to fix me, you know.’

‘It will. I promise.’ Matt reached out for Frank’s hand in the darkness. After a moment’s silence, Frank grabbed it and squeezed back. More flutters. How odd. ‘Just — don’t give up. Please.’

Frank looked at Matt’s hand in his. It seemed so _perfect_ compared to his. ‘If I tell you to fuck off, will you still follow me around?’

‘Yeah.’ No question. He was going to follow Frank around, all right.

Finally, Frank acquiesced. ‘Okay,’ he sighed. He took a deep breath to stay the strange, unfamiliar nerves in his body. ‘Okay.’

Slowly Frank and Matt made their way to the end of the alley, where more troubles and crime waited for them. If Matt listened carefully, he could already hear the sounds of yet another robbery; yet another opportunity for healing and forgetting. And in the distance, or perhaps closer by, he could hear something else take place in the pits of their stomachs too.

‘But I’m telling you, stranger, it won’t work.’

It would. And it did.

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this while I was in the middle of an undignified breakdown and I don't really know what to think of it.


End file.
